Words from Colorado

         When you hear the word refuge, what immediately comes to mind? I think of a place of safety. Some isolated reinforced bunker like structure that one hopes to be near when say, an F-5 tornado is heading your way.  Refuge is a secure word; it offers a harbor when the seas are just too rough.   Life is often rough. Goals we set, seem at first attainable, then setbacks cause us to reassess just how reachable they really are.  We get weary.  Dreams I have often said,  are goals with deadlines. What do you do when the dream and the deadline can’t be found in the same calendar, or even year? Pray! Pray? Yes…Pray! To who? To the only one who can synchronize dreams and deadlines!  Let me explain.   I happen to Pastor a wonderful Church in Southwest Wyoming.   HillTop Baptist Church is a growing Church.   I will tell you why…loving Churches grow, and growing Churches love!  And HillTo...

            Love, is something that is sometimes hard to express, but we know when we have been loved, when someone is genuine and their love toward us is so needed and welcomed!    As a Christian and a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, I should love. It’s really not an option for one who says he belongs to the very one who demonstrated what real love should look like.  The Apostle John who was the only Apostle not to be killed for his faith, the one who wrote 1, 2, 3, John and the book of Revelation reminds us:   No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. (1 John3: 9-10).  God has a twofold expectation of those ...

I am so thankful that at last Tim Tebow will get a chance to show what he can do. I fully expect that He will do very well, and here is why. 1. He already has! In the games he has played in, he energizes the crowd, he has a wonderful way of making people take notice, as in, it's not an option! He can score on the ground, or in the air, he is in a word electrifying! 2. He will continue serve up "hope" on a big platter! Just before he came in against the chargers I was about to fall asleep on the couch! Once he trotted onto the field I postponed the nap, and watched him do, what he always does, play his heart out, and serve a large portion of "Hope" to one starving stadium, filled with deprived Denver hopefuls! On the last play, I was off the couch, on my knees saying come on Tim, Come On Tim...And I am fifty! 3. He is fun to watch! I know it’s a business, and the goal is to win, yet with this young man, there is joy in knowing that in a world of inflated ...

     * H eaven is for Real   is a book about a four year old boy named Colton who died due to a burst appendix and was brought back to life. The parents were surprised to hear of his stories of angels and Jesus.  Over the course of the next few years Colton’s parents would glean more and more detail from his extraordinary trip.  Since Colton had said he had met Jesus, whenever Colton’s Dad would come across a painting of Jesus he would show it to Colton and ask him if this is what Jesus really looked like. He dismissed all of them until he saw a painting called The Prince of Peace , painted by a child prodigy. That painting is the one you see above. When he saw that painting, Colton just stopped and stared, then said “Yeah, that’s him.” He was especially drawn to Jesus’ eyes in the painting, which Colton said did a great job of expressing the love he saw when he met him. *Source Sonlight Pictures Blog There is nothing that compares to knowing th...

         I saw courageous last night with my wife Laura and several friends.  After an endless stream of previews it started. I knew it would be over two hours long, and though I had heard it was an excellent movie, I had some misgivings. As a Christian and as a Pastor, I was concerned that somehow despite all the good things I had heard, the movie would come across as low budget; with poor acting…in a word I was thinking, will this be cheesy?   Why the concern for the cheese factor?    Because those who oppose the message of hope found in Jesus Christ, often mock and deride solid morals; they assume that believers are hopelessly lost in a time warp, and deep down want the world to resemble the 50’s instead of the times we now live in.  If then, a cinematic offering appears to lack depth, or reality or whatever critics feel a movie needs to be relevant, they attack! And to be sure many critics have attacked Courageous, on everythi...